The Ugly Surrender

**Sorry for the stone cold silence on this blog lately. I’ve hit a block (again) and haven’t known what to say. Today though, after seeing a whopping 17 posts languishing in draft mode, I decided that enough is enough. Time to end the streak! Here’s a post I started a good 4 weeks ago: **

It all started with the doctor.

Mentally and physically, I had reached the end of my rope concerning endometriosis and pain and infertility. Desperate for answers and for relief from endo, last week month Jake and I consulted with a doctor at a clinic specializing in endometriosis and pelvic pain. This clinic is in another state, doesn’t accept my insurance, and was more than an hour’s drive in thick rush hour traffic. But its promise of hope lured me.

As a clinic specifically geared toward endo sufferers, I had high expectations. Even though I’m aware of the science and the limited options concerning endo and fertility, I just needed to know ONE LAST TIME if there’s something—anything—out there which we hadn’t yet tried.

But? There’s not. Medically, my choices come down to Lupron, continuing to try naturally, or IVF (paid for by my money tree in the backyard, perhaps?).

As compassionate and knowledgeable as the doctor we met with was, she wasted little time steering us toward IVF. Another IVF is a post for another day. With fewer answers than the many questions we’d come with, Jake and I left the clinic reeling from the reality that we’re out of options.

Medically, the odds are stacked high against us.

Maybe I had just needed to reach the end of myself and of my options. If so then, honey, I’m there. Actually, I’m somewhere beyond “there.”

The thing is, this appointment wasn’t especially different from any of the many other consults Jake and I have attended. But we had gone to this appointment in a last-ditch effort for help and left feeling deflated.

With nothing except time to talk during our drive from the clinic, Jake made one very excellent point: the only real decision to make is for us (read: me) to surrender this fertility business to God.

Now I don’t like surrender; I like control. I like to be doing something, forward momentum… even if what I’m doing is spinning my wheels. At least I still have the illusion of control. But this whole baby thing? It’s laughable to consider that I’ve ever had any control.

I’m not proud to admit this, but my initial reaction to Jake’s suggestion of surrender was anger, denial, and refusal to submit. I felt my human pride rising up, and I wanted to rebel at the world. The unfairness of it all—denied having a mother, denied being a mother—felt just too, well, unfair. Now to be asked to surrender my feeble attempt at control? I don’t want to!

Plus all the losses. And all the surgeries. All the money. All the doctors. For what? For a disease which no one can cure, understand, or even properly manage. For years gone by and no pregnancy, no baby. For an endless money hole.

Enough. I can’t do it on my own.

Okay, I will surrender. Even if at first it’s a slow takeoff. I’m confident that my heart will fully get there, bit by bit; it takes time to soften me up. God has allowed me to reach the end of myself so that I can lean 100% on Him. Do I trust Jesus? Really trust Him??? Will I surrender this thing and vanquish my self-deluded control?

What does “surrendering it” look like? For me, surrendering looks like I put my whole trust in the Lord to heal and repair my body… even if it’s for a disease that I can’t see. It means I remain full of hope for our future family when all looks hopeless and I desperately want to quit. Because the truth is, I’d been considering giving up lately. It means that the slim, couple-of-percent chance to someday naturally give Jake a baby becomes an absolute given in my mind. It means I rest in God’s timing, because it’s always so much better than my own timing anyway.